The final workshop of this module was a ‘Dragons’ Den’ type of event. The aim of the workshop was to create a business plan as a group for a biological or environmental based business which we then had to pitch to the ‘Dragons’. The business would have to one that was meant to solve a problem or provide a service that people wanted.

The pitch was to be an ‘elevator pitch’ meaning that it was to be short and highlight the key facts about the business and how it worked.

We were told to use the business model canvas, which is used as an aid to ensure that the business plan covers everything that a business needs to ensure that it can be successful in 9 headings. These are:

Customer segments

Value proposition

Channels

Customer relationships

Revenue streams

Key resources

Key activities

Key partners

Cost structure

The idea

We were split into groups and were given a list of business ideas that we could use as the main idea for the business, or we could choose to use our own idea as long as it was still relevant to biology. My group chose to create our own idea and we decided to build our plan around an ecological surveying agency that specialised in surveying for building planning permission.

The aim of the business was to ensure that threatened and endangered species are not threatened by building developers by providing a service to the local council, environmental groups and the building developers themselves to avoid negative publicity, as well as having the upside of ensuring vulnerable habitats are conserved.

My thoughts

I found this workshop to be useful when it came to giving me more practice with presenting, as it is something that I find to be somewhat nerve wracking. On the actual process of making the plan I found it to be useful as I have never done anything like this before and was surprised at the complexity of the plan.

The workshop itself helped me to realise what I have expected, which that I do not want to own my own business as I think that I would not only find it to be too stressful but I would also be too frustrated.

Text Widget

This is a text widget, which allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use them to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.